All for You

by Christi Barth

  “Too bad. I would’ve given you a pass on anything with sugar in it. That always tops my priority list. So what’s a bare necessity to you?”

  “Emergency space blanket.” After last night, Zane didn’t want to go near any body of water in the region without a warmth backup. Plus, the whole thing folded up to the size of a pocket pack of tissue. Totally cool. “Snake bite kit, ’cause you kind of scared me yesterday with that story about potentially knifing a copperhead. I don’t do snakes. Rats, assorted bugs, even bears—I’m okay with facing down all of them. But no snakes.”

  “See?” A wide smile accompanied her playful tug at his coiled rope. “You’re a real-life Indiana Jones.”

  Zane would let her call him anything in the world if it meant more smiles like that one. He could tell she hadn’t done the whole girly detailing buff-and-polish to get ready for their date. She wore the same uniform he’d seen her in every day so far. No makeup on those sun-kissed cheeks. Hair in the same tidy but adorable braids. And yet she knocked him out with that bright smile. Not to mention that the capable forest-ranger persona impressed the heck out of him. Casey was the kind of person who could keep everyone alive after a plane crash on a deserted island. Her unassuming competence pushed all of Zane’s buttons in the right way.

  “Hang on a second. Let’s back up and start this thing right.” Zane pulled over on the narrow path and folded her into his arms. Smelled the faint hint of lemony flowers on her hair. Noticed how quickly her body softened against his, how well they fit together. Wondered if he’d be able to do this hike sporting semi-wood. So he pulled back sooner than he’d have liked. “Hello, Casey.”

  “Hi, Zane,” she replied, a little breathily. The matching slow eyelid flutter proved he’d done the right thing by taking the time to hug. This was still a date. A hard-won official one, which had required arm-twisting on several fronts. Zane didn’t know what her friends had said to her behind that office door, but he was sure glad they’d changed her mind. This forest might be—technically—her workplace, but he’d do his damnedest to romance her in it.

  “Are you ready to show me your world?”

  “Nope.” Her smile turned sassy. Casey flattened her hands against his chest. “You haven’t finished the laundry list of what’s in all these pockets. It wouldn’t be safe for me to be walking as you tell me. I’ll be giggling too hard to stay upright.”

  “Very funny. Don’t worry. I’ll catch you if you fall.” But instead of walking on, Zane caught her wrist in his hand. Slowly moved it over each pocket as he spoke. “Bug spray. Matches. Flashlight. Compass. Sunscreen.” He finished by putting her hand on the pocket on his ass. Didn’t say a word.

  Her fingers curved beneath his, pressing in a little. “What’s in here?”

  “Let’s just say we have to go on a couple more dates before you find out.”

  “If you keep putting my hands on you like this, we won’t make it to another date.” Casey tossed her head, braids flying out sassily. “I’ll just head fifty feet into the bushes and have my way with you.”

  If Zane had been ten years younger, he’d have taken the invitation at face value. Raced her into the bushes, and shucked his pants along the way. But he was thirty-four now. No longer ruled by his dick alone. Yeah, it still led the charge much of the time. Nothing wrong with a fast forest hook-up, in theory.

  Zane suddenly found that he wanted more, though. He wanted to know this woman before sinking into her. Wanted to know what made her eyes spark with interest, not just glaze with passion. That made the sex ultimately better and hotter. More than worth waiting for, in the long run. And the more time he spent with Casey, the more he thought his post-divorce quantity over quality approach to dating was over.

  So he counted in his head to ten. In Latin. When that didn’t stop the blood from pooling just south of his belt, he tried doing it again in German. And side-stepped his ass right out of her grasp. “I don’t intend to be a disposable body for you to use.” Although it would feel damn good. Zane hurried on before he second-guessed his decision. “I don’t want this to be over and done with in a day or night or even both.”

  “Because you’re stamina-guy? You want a whole weekend of bush-boinking?” A gaggle of Mennonites in blue dresses and hats accompanied by bearded men clucked their tongues as they scurried past.

  “I’m not joking,” he bit out. “You promised to give us a chance and we are going to let this thing play out. Because I think it could be worth the effort. I think you could be worth the effort, Casey.” Zane couldn’t put into words why, exactly. Not yet. All he had concrete evidence of right now was the insta-attraction burning between them with the heat of a supernova. But he did have a feeling about her he couldn’t shake. A pull that couldn’t be ignored. Which was why he needed more time with her.

  Her eyes widened. For a minute, he wasn’t sure if Casey was going to go along with his plan, or just go on her merry way. “I don’t usually make much of an effort with men,” she confessed. “Simple works for me. Uncomplicated works for me. Nobody’s ever complained.”

  “I’m not registering a complaint. I’m just trying to sign up for the extended-play version.” It surprised Zane that this was such a hard sell. It made him wonder why. What fascinating twists in Casey’s life had steered her away from relationships? “If you haven’t tried going deeper with someone, how do you know you won’t like it? One conversation can change your entire life.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered. Then her nimble fingers plucked the bug spray, flashlight, compass and sunscreen from his pockets and shoved them all behind a bush. “You can retrieve all this when we’re done.”

  The more she balked, the more intrigued he became. “You should try something new, or do something slightly differently, every day. It keeps you young.”

  “That’s exactly how to snare a woman, Zane. Hint that she’s getting old and wrinkly before your very eyes.” But with a small sigh, Casey entwined her fingers with his and resumed walking on the path, slippery with mist from the roiling water below. “Watkins Glen has nineteen waterfalls in a little under two miles. How about with every waterfall we come to, we alternate sharing facts about each other?”

  “Sounds perfect.” He took another two steps and then stopped. Water streamed from the rocky ledge above him like a liquid curtain. Sheer enough to see through, but steady. “You start us off.”

  She tugged at the end of her braid. “Big or small?”

  “Hmm.” Zane pretended to ponder the question, but he knew she needed to be eased into this game. “If you’re really an alien from the planet Nebulon, I’d lead with that. Otherwise, I’m okay with you starting small.”

  That earned him a set of pursed, pink lips in a thoughtful twist. “Well, my cousins on my mom’s side are from Aldelara, just past the outer limits of the Milky Way, but we consider them the black sheep of the family. Not really worth mentioning.”

  He bit back a snicker, playing along with a straight face. “Obviously.”

  They started walking again. The noise of the waterfall subsided as soon as they turned the corner. “I like true-crime novels.” Casey bit her lip and snuck a sideways glance at him. She looked as guilty as if she’d admitted to committing the crimes herself. “Sounds morbid, I know, but I gobble them up like candy.”

  “Why?”

  She huffed out a breath that lifted the wisps of hair at her temples. “Are you going to ask that about everything I tell you?”

  “Probably,” Zane answered with a cheerful grin. Then he ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. Cool how the spindly trees grew straight out of the cliff face, without being rooted in any apparent dirt. “I can’t help myself. So what do you find so satisfying about the rampage of a serial killer?”

  Another sidelong glance. “This question is rapidly escalating from small to medium-sized.”
/>
  “Then you should’ve started by telling me your favorite color.”

  “Green,” she hollered on a laugh.

  Yeah, he’d left the door wide open for her to shimmy into that loophole. And he respected that she’d picked up on it. “All right. I’ll let you slide. But I’m going to come back around to the why behind your favorite books.”

  “Not before you reveal something deep and dark.” The glee in her voice said that she knew she’d turned the tables on him. Of course, there were still eighteen waterfalls to go. Nine more facts for her to reveal. He’d find a way to get her to spill the goods. Eventually, Zane got everyone to spill. That was his superpower, and he loved it.

  “Really? You get to start with your favorite color, and I have to go deep and dark? Not fair.”

  “Fine.” Casey stopped. Pointed down this time, at a plunge of water below their path that twisted into a narrow chasm. “If you’re going to whine about it, what’s your top, Zane Buchanan, super-simple factoid?”

  “I like ketchup on hamburgers, but not on hot dogs. Can’t explain the dichotomy. I also put it on fries, but not on home fries.”

  “What about on scrambled eggs?”

  Finally. A chance to return her sidelong squint of disdain. “Now you’re just talking crazy, woman.”

  “Nope. That was a test. I don’t think I could be with a man who violates eggs with bland ketchup.” Casey patted his arm. “Don’t worry—you passed with flying colors. Until we hit the great debate of donuts versus bagels.”

  She’d relaxed. They strolled along the wet path, hand in hand like so many other couples they passed. Her ranger uniform earned them a few second glances. “Are you going to get in trouble? For fraternizing while on duty?”

  “I’m not on duty. I only worked a half day, since I put in so much time on the weekend. And no, I wouldn’t get in trouble. Not as long as we keep it rated PG.”

  “Duly noted.” And in just a few steps, they were at another waterfall. This one was more of a slow trickle down the side, barely slicking over the thick growth of moss behind it. But it still counted, and from the gleam in her eye, Casey was already thinking of a question.

  “Let’s see, where can you go after revealing your so-very-private ketchup rules? Should we cover all your condiment fetishes? Weigh in on horseradish versus wasabi?”

  You had to give a little to get something in return. So Zane jumped right into the revelation deep end. “I thought I’d offer up a fact with a little more weight. You should know right off the bat that I’m divorced.”

  The stutter in her steps said he’d caught her off-guard. But Casey’s response came immediately. “Recently? Because if I’m your rebound recovery girl, I feel like there should be costumes involved.” She waved her hand in the air, as if indicating a whole world of possibilities. “Maybe toys.”

  That was enough to throw Zane off his pace. The vision of Casey in little bits of black lace whisked through his mind. If he didn’t focus he’d walk right off the edge and end up on the rocks below. “That ship has sailed. If I only wanted rebound sex from you, we’d have checked that off the list that first night by the lake. No, Rebecca and I split more than a year and a half ago.”

  “Do you want to tell me why?”

  Zane decided to give her a taste of her own medicine. “Shouldn’t that count as its own waterfall reveal? We’ve only taken about ten steps since the last one.”

  “I want to know.” Casey sank onto a bench made of two enormous logs. Patted the space beside her in invitation. “It can count for the whole rest of this hike, if you want. But I’d like to hear what happened.”

  It should get less embarrassing with time. And with repeated tellings. Especially for a man who rarely bothered to hold back anything. But it still stung. Both her betrayal and his idiocy. Zane paced, kicking loose gravel with every step. “The story’s far from original. Rebecca cheated on me. Decided she was happier with pretty much anyone but me and left.”

  “If this is going to count for at least seven waterfalls’ worth of questions, I’m going to need a few more details.”

  Starting to sweat—as she’d predicted, damn it—he shrugged out of his vest. Dropped it over the back of the bench and sighed as he sat. “I take a solid fifty percent of the blame. Rebecca wasn’t happy. I wasn’t an ideal husband. Apparently.” Or so she’d screamed at him the night he’d returned from three months researching a cult in Egypt to discover her bags packed and her keys on the mantel. If his plane had been delayed even half an hour, Rebecca would’ve hit the road with nothing more than a letter on his pillow as explanation. “I drop the rest of the blame squarely on her shoulders, though. For her decision on how to deal with her unhappiness.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Not what. Who.” If he ran down the whole list, they’d need this hike to go an extra few miles. “Let’s see, she started with her personal trainer. Moved on to her bank teller, her mechanic, pretty much anyone in the service industry who wandered into her web. The final straw was when she screwed my publicist in the limo during a book signing. I made the mistake of going back to the car for a pack of gum. Found them instead.”

  Casey didn’t say anything when he paused. So he finally turned to look at her square on. Mouth slightly open, she blinked. Slowly. Then twice more before finally asking, “You have a publicist?”

  Of all the things he’d expected her to say or ask, that one hadn’t even been on his radar. “That’s the question you want to lead with?”

  “Good point.” Casey tapped her finger against her lips. “Did you deck him?”

  Oh, how he’d wanted to grind his fist into Ken’s smirk. But Zane knew a split lip would heal too fast to be satisfying. “I fired him. Trust me, that was a much more painful blow.”

  “Good for you. That jerk wasn’t worth the sore knuckles. You divorced Rebecca?”

  “No, she divorced me. Because she still claims it’s entirely my fault. That every man she fucked, that she broke our marriage vows with, was a cry for help. Said I was too obsessed with my work. Obsessed with uncovering the truth. That I was so busy observing everyone else in the world that I didn’t even notice she was cheating on me.”

  A couple more beats. Zane could almost see the data processing behind her eyes. And he saw the flicker, the moment when she decided exactly what needed clarification. “Can we go back to the publicist? And the limo? Maybe an explanation of how a college professor can be obsessed with work to the point of not noticing his absentee wife?”

  “I wasn’t teaching back then.” Zane was in the awkward position of clarifying that while he was semi-famous...he wasn’t famous enough for Casey to recognize. “I’m a cult expert. I started out as a teacher. Got hooked on research pretty fast. Ended up traveling all over, digging into different cultures and cult communities. I’ve written several books on the subject. Even had one turned into a miniseries.”

  “Oh.” Her face blanked. Completely shuttered off.

  Guess she was even more bored by the topic than her friend Gray. Not that it mattered to Zane. He’d never cared about the notoriety. Didn’t flash his cash in an obvious way. So having to explain his publicist and limo situation made him feel like a pretentious jackass, especially in today’s crappy economy. Not that he had a driver on call or anything. And he liked it that way. What he didn’t like was the sudden distance between him and Casey. The only thing Zane could think of was to keep talking.

  “At first Rebecca came with me. We were young enough that it was romantic, being holed up in a crappy hotel on the outskirts of nowhere. When we came back home, I’d write for several months. Rebecca got used to being at home, in the much nicer apartment we could suddenly afford. She didn’t like being a teacher’s wife. For a while I thought she liked being an author’s wife. Now I realize she just didn’t like being my wife.” />
  A quick shake of the head, as if Casey was dialing back in to their conversation. Then a fire lit in those green eyes. “That’s harsh.”

  He appreciated her taking sides. Taking his side. Zane still needed to make it clear that he was far from blameless. And that he’d come out the other side armed with the knowledge of how to do it better the next time. “It’s true, though. I didn’t pay attention to Rebecca. Not enough, at any rate. I get single-minded when I’m working. I dig in, fast and deep. I learned the hard way that it’s okay to forget to shave for three days, but it’s not okay to forget to call your wife for three days.”

  “Maybe...” She trailed off, staring at birds pecking away at the remains of a granola bar.

  “What?”

  “You seem to be a very passionate man.” Casey twisted, took his hand and held it on her lap. “I think if you were truly in love with your wife, she would’ve been your passion just as much as work. You would’ve remembered to call, if she was truly the right woman for you. How about you cut yourself some slack?”

  “I, uh...” Zane blew out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “I never looked at it from that angle. Feels like cheating, a bit. Like I’m less to blame if we weren’t truly destined to stay together.”

  Casey quirked a half grin at him. “It also makes Rebecca less to blame.”

  “Hey, I might not have made the grade as a husband, but at least I didn’t cheat. Vows, loyalty—those aren’t just words. They’re ideals I base my life around.”

  Another pregnant pause. If she kept this up, he’d wonder if she was pulling a Cyrano scheme. Maybe Ella and Piper were telling her what to say via an earpiece. Because what on earth needed to be mulled over this long? Was she so put off by the idea of a divorced man? Because at their age, it was impossible to date without dealing from the divorce deck.

  “Loyalty means everything to me, too,” she said in a small, quiet voice. “Knowing you feel the same way means a lot. Words are easy. Actions prove a person’s worth, prove you can trust.”